Global

Something strange is happening at Earth’s center. Decades of earthquake data show that Earth’s inner core has been rotating slower than its mantle and surface since around 2010, researchers report June 12 in Nature. The study appears to confirm a controversial finding from last year that the inner core may have reversed its rotation relative … Read more

In planet formation, as in poker, you have to play the hand you’re dealt. If an Earthlike planet is the goal, the best starting hand might contain three to eight times all the water in Earth’s oceans. “There’s kind of a sweet spot,” says Keavin Moore, a planetary scientist at McGill University in Montreal. Less … Read more

An ancient Egyptian mummy, dubbed the “Screaming Woman” for what appears to be an open-mouthed look of pain or fear, might have had that expression fixed in place by a rare muscle reaction when she died. Sudden muscular stiffening associated with violent deaths under extreme physical and emotional stress, known as cadaveric spasm, could explain … Read more

Black holes can’t be formed from pure light. Quantum physics would curb their creation under any foreseeable conditions, a new study suggests. Typically, matter is responsible for black holes. They’re often formed when a star’s core implodes at the end of its life. But matter isn’t necessarily required to form a black hole. According to … Read more

To expand the periodic table, it might be time to go titanium.  A new study lays the groundwork to expand the periodic table with a search for element 120, to be made by slamming electrically charged titanium atoms, or ions, into a californium target. If produced, the new element would have an atomic nucleus brimming … Read more

The neutrino “fog” is beginning to materialize. Lightweight subatomic particles called neutrinos have begun elbowing their way into the data of experiments not designed to spot them. Two experiments, built to detect particles of dark matter, have caught initial glimpses of neutrinos born in the sun, physicists report. “That’s a triumph,” says neutrino physicist Kate … Read more

To leave a lasting trail, meteors need to aim low. A new survey of shooting stars shows that meteors that blaze through 90 kilometers up in the sky leave a persistent afterglow, unlike those that burn up at greater heights. Meteors are normally blink-and-you’ll-miss-it events. A particle of space dust leaves a fiery trail of … Read more

An appetite-stimulating protein can reverse anorexia in mice. Mice with lack of appetite and weight loss — symptoms similar to people with anorexia — that were genetically tweaked to secrete a protein called ACBP ate more food and weighed more than anorexic animals with an ACBP deficit, researchers report August 14 in Science Translational Medicine. … Read more

On August 8, the Japanese Meteorological Agency issued its first-ever “megaquake alert,” after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake rocked the Miyazaki prefecture in southern Japan earlier that day. The Miyazaki quake injured at least 16 people and generated minor tsunamis up to 50 centimeters tall that reached the country’s coastline about half an hour later. The … Read more

For millennia, humans have seen inexplicable things in the sky. Some have been beautiful, some have been terrifying, and some — like auroras and solar eclipses before they were understood scientifically — have been both. Today’s aircraft, balloons, drones, satellites and more only increase the chances of spotting something confounding overhead. In the United States, … Read more